Mike Brigandi and four other sailors wanted to go to Disneyland.
So they took up a Navy offer, and landed in the submarine service – well four of them did.
“I volunteered to go see a submarine when I was in San Diego in 1966, and two weeks later, I was transferred to sub school,” said Brigandi, 79, of Vallejo. “There were about five of us who went up there and took the bait.”
The bait was a weekend pass, a chance to see a submarine, and then off to Disneyland.
The one sailor who washed out, Brigandi said, ended up on a surface ship assigned to the submarine service that, ironically, would be struck by the submarine to which Brigandi was assigned – the USS Simon Bolivar, a Benjamin Franklin class ballistic missile submarine, and named for Simón Bolívar, the Venezuelan hero of the independence movements of the former Spanish colonies in South America.
It was submerged and running drills in August 1967 when it collided with the USS Betelgeuse.
“But I wasn’t on it at the time,” Brigandi said.
“So the Gold Crew stayed on for the 30 days it was in dry dock, and then we (the Blue Crew) took it out
See Brigandi, Page 17
I always wanted to be in the Navy.
MIKE BRIGANDI
AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC
Mike Brigandi stands inside Redman Hall in Vallejo. He served as a radioman on the USS Simon Bolivar.
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Fairfield man recounts days in Vietnam – never Hawaii
TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
After a year in Thailand, providing intelligence to American forces, Mike Satterfield was sent home to teach others how to do his job: imagery interpretation.
Arriving at Lowry Air Force Base in Colorado, reassigned to the Armed Forces Intelligence Training Center as a technical instructor, Satterfield learned that he had his choice for his next assignment.
“So I thought Hickam, Hickam Air Force Base. Hawaii, would be a nice place to go,” Satterfield, 87, said recently while sitting in the living room of his Fairfield home.
Well, he did touch down in Hawaii, but only to refuel the plane on his way back to Vietnam, where he would spend three more years over two additional deployments.
Mike Satterfield holds a photograph of the awards he received in the military.
He would go back to Hawaii, again for just enough time to refuel on his way to Guam.
During the war, he was first stationed at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand in June 1967. He was redeployed to the Tan Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam in February 1971, and finally, in January 1973, he returned to the Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, only to be reassigned a month later to Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base and attached to the U.S. Special Activities Group.
He received the Bronze Star for his work in providing intelligence that pinpointed the location of a well-hidden enemy surface-to-air missile location – or SAM site – that had been very troublesome for the American forces.
The location was Laos.
It was one of the few times he learned about the results of his work, which helped knock out the radar guidance system, and received acknowledgement for doing it.
An easy smile returns to his face with the 50-plus-year-old memory.
Satterfield also remembers, on those occasions he found himself on a helicopter, how beautiful Vietnam was, with its waterfalls and open country. He once spotted a large Buddha in the middle of a rice paddy.
“But I also saw SAM encampments, too,” Satterfield said.
See Vietnam, Page 19
I had such a high clearance that when I got out, I was told I couldn’t publish a book or say anything about what we did for the rest of my life.
MIKE SATTERFIELD
AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC PHOTOS
Mike Satterfield in his home in Fairfield. He received the Bronze Star for his work in providing intelligence that pinpointed the location of a well-hidden enemy surface-to-air missile site.
Newfoundland convinced Vaca man submarines would be better
TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
Thomas Brames has a unique piece of memorabilia that only 10 others in the U.S. Navy possess – and a pretty unique story about how he met his wife.
The memorabilia is a 6-inch plaque, fashioned from pieces of the teak-wood deck and sail of the USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine in the United States service.
“And that is in a very safe safe,” said Brames, sitting on the back patio of his rural Vacaville home.
A Connecticut artisan made the plaques from pieces of the submarine that broke off from the force of the submarine traveling under speed while submerged.
Moreover, Brames was one of only about 17 crew members who were aboard when the Nautilus was floated down the Thames River, from General Dynamics’ Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut – christened with a bottle of champagne by Mamie Eisenhower on Jan. 21, 1954 –to New London.
More than 30,000 people attended the event.
Most of the other crew had been delayed at various stations due to weather.
Brames had been at nuclear school at
the U.S. Naval Proving Ground in Arco, Idaho, where the prototype of the submarine reactor was built. He had borrowed a car and was headed east when he got into an accident in Wyoming. From there, he flew back to New London for the launch of the Nautilus.
It was commissioned on Sept. 30, 1954, under the command of Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson.
My father was in the Navy during the war and he was my hero.
THOMAS BRAMES
At 11 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1955, the boat set sail as the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine. Standing on the deck along with its commander was Capt. Hyman G. Rickover, who would become to be known as the “Father of the Nuclear Navy.” He had supervised the construction of the Nautilus, which had been authorized by Congress under President Harry Truman in July 1951.
Radioman Thomas Brames also was part of that inaugural voyage – one of 84 men and 12 officers. He would serve
See Brames, Page
AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC
Tom Brames sits on his deck at his house in Vacaville. He was one of only about 17 crew members who were aboard when the USS Nautilus was christened with a bottle of Champagne by Mamie Eisenhower on Jan. 21, 1954.
16
A photograph of the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine, at a ceremony for its launching in Groton, Conn.
Vacaville man was on final flight of ‘Sacred Cow’
TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
Al Murphy spent about three years of his time in the U.S. Air Force taking care of a “Sacred Cow.”
“It was the first presidential aircraft,” Murphy, 92, said in an interview at his Vacaville home.
The plane, a Douglas VC-54C Skymaster, was converted in 1944 for use by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and included an elevator. It also had one piece of bulletproof glass, located where the president sat in the plane.
“It looked a lot like the one sitting at Travis Air Force Base,” Murphy said. “But it was the only one of its kind because it had that elevator.”
It carried Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the meeting of Allied leaders to determine the look of postwar Germany and Europe.
“He only used it a couple of times before he died,” Murphy said of Roosevelt.
However, it was used extensively for a little more than two years by President Harry S. Truman, who would then get his own plane. During his use of the Sacred Cow, officially known as the Flying White House, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, establishing the U.S. Air Force.
In all, the plane navigated 1.5 million miles, equivalent to about 70 times around the world.
The Army was looking at me, but I didn’t want anything to do with a foxhole.
AL MURPHY
What would eventually become recognized as Air Force One showed up on the scene in 1953 and became President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s personal transport.
That plane, a customized C-121, was christened the Columbine II after the state flower of Mamie Eisenhower’s adopted state of Colorado.
Murphy also showed up on the scene in 1953 when he enlisted in the Air Force to get off the family potato farm in Maine. He was 21 years old.
“The Army was looking at me, but I didn’t want anything to do with a foxhole. And there was a big airbase close to where I grew up and they looked like they had a good time.”
He would spend 26 years in the service, including one in Vietnam as part of a maintenance crew in Saigon. He worked on cargo planes and bombers, including the B-52.
A photograph of Al Murphy standing in front of the “Sacred Cow,” a Douglas VC-54C Skymaster.
While Murphy was on the ground, he was designated as a crew chief. In the air, he was the flight engineer.
“I came in the early stage of Vietnam, during the initial buildup, but I knew I was going to go,” he said. He arrived in September 1964 and left the following August.
“You would see a lot of things you didn’t want to,” said Murphy, recalling
See Murphy, Page 17
AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC
Al Murphy lives in Vacaville. He spent 26 years in the U.S. Air Force.
Vietnam Era veteran part of proud Filipino heritage
TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
There are 31 pairs of brothers who died during the Vietnam War – their names etched into the Memorial Wall.
With one son already deployed, Abe Bautista’s mother was not interested in having her only other son in the war, too.
“My brother was already in Vietnam. He was in the Army (air borne), a captain,” Bautista said.
He said his possibility of enlist ing and joining his brother in the war was a constant source of fric tion between he and his mother.
“She didn’t want me to go,” he said. “So I went into the (Navy) Reserves, and I went into the officer program later.”
He described the decision as the lesser of two evils: military service or defying his mother.
Bautista, a 1967 Armijo High graduate, was taking classes at Solano Community College. He would transfer to what was then Sacramento State College, where he would earn a bachelor’s degree in Business Management.
Like many other college students, Bautista was distracted by the college life.
“I was partying and I came back home and he (his brother) was shipping off to Vietnam, and I don’t think I realized how serious that was. It could have been the last time I saw him,” Bautista said.
The brothers would meet up in The Philippines later, and by then, Abe Bautista and come to realize fully that his brief reunion could, in fact, be the last time he saw his brother.
He learned that his brother’s commanding officer had been mortally wounded. The pilot of the medical evacuation helicopter that came in to pick the commander
up was another Armijo High graduate, Timmy Tagudin, a classmate of Abe Bautista.
Fred Bautista, a 1964 Armijo alum, would survive the war.
Abe Bautista had enlisted in the reserves on May 26, 1971, and was called to active duty in June 1973.
out of the military. He was honorably discharged in January 1974.
His military experience did heighten his interest in Filipino history, both in the military and in California. Hist father, Fedil Bautista, served in the U.S. Army in the Pacific Theater during World War II, as did an uncle, Leo Bautista. Their brother, Jimmy Bautista, was a farmer who provided food to the armed forces.
It is a source of frustration that those Filipino service members who did not put boots back on The Philippines have not been recognized for their service like those who received the Congressional Gold Medal for their part in fighting on the island.
Bautista, who for nearly 10 years served as a trustee on the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District, is very active with the Sac-Delta Chapter of the National Filipino American Historical Society.
He also wonders if the younger generations really understand what his generation went through, or even want to know.
“It’s a totally different world,” he said. “What’s black isn’t black; what’s white isn’t white; and 2 and 2 isn’t 4. It’s something else,” Bautista said.
My brother was already in Vietnam. ... She (his mother) didn’t want me to go.
ABE BAUTISTA
Bautista said he was never really comfortable while in the reserves. He was older than a lot of the others in boot camp, which was at Great Lakes, Illinois, which seemed like a foreign land to the California kid. He also was much smaller.
Following boot camp, he was
sent back “home” to the Alameda Air Station, though he would soon be sent to Fallon, Nevada, where the Navy had an Air Station.
Bautista said he always had an interest in aircraft, but it was then he decided he wanted to fly, so he volunteered for the program and was sent to Pensacola, Florida, for training.
That came shortly after he had
gotten married. He and his wife, Remy, would have four children.
One died as an infant, and their oldest son would later drown in Lake Berryessa. They have two surviving daughters.
An unknown heart condition led to Bautista “washing out” of the pilot program. He considered seeking a different commission, but by then, he was ready to get
The Vietnam War took its toll, but defined a generation.
To that end, one Nebraska mother actually lost three of her sons to the war.
All three were aboard the USS Frank E. Evans when, on June 2, 1969, their destroyer collided with the Australian aircraft carrier, the HMAS Melbourne, in the South China Sea.
Because their deaths were not considered combat-related, their names are not on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.
AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC
Navy veteran Abe Bautista, a 1967 Armijo High graduate, enlisted in the reserves in 1971.
Longtime educator, wife served during World War II
TODD R. HANSEN THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
Betty Ann Tracas, who was named after her mother, cannot remem ber her ever talking about her time in the service.
And when her husband, Sam Tracas, did, Betty Tracas (mom) would usually have a deri sive response.
“She rarely did, whereas if my dad brought something up, she would say, ‘Oh, Sammy,’ ” Betty Ann said.
Her mother was an ensign in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service – WAVES – in charge of a ward at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland – nurses and corps men – during World War II.
“She was very sad about what happened to the fellas,” her daughter said.
She would later work at Prov idence Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa. She died about five years ago.
Sam Tracas, who took fresh flowers to his wife’s grave every week until recently because of health issues, also was stationed at Oak Knoll, and he too had great empathy for the men who came there for care – especially those who had been paralyzed.
“He felt bad because they were young fellas paralyzed from the waist down, most of them, and he had to take care of them,” his daughter said.
Sam Tracas laughs with with Claudia Wilde at Mimi’s Cafe in Fairfield, June 3, 2017. Tracas enlisted in the U.S. Navy on Feb. 16, 1945.
Betty Tracas served as an ensign in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency
He viewed it as both a duty and a privilege.
Sam and Betty did not actually meet, however, until they were at UC Berkeley. They had four children.
Sam Tracas, 98, known greatly for his educational achievements in Solano County, had three brothers who also served during
World War II.
John Tracas served aboard the USS Independence, and Frank Tracas aboard the USS Lexington. Both were witnesses to Gen. Douglas MacArthur accepting the surrender from Japan.
George Tracas, as a GreekAmerican, was a volunteer member of the Greek Brigade.
Sam Tracas enlisted in the U.S. Navy on Feb. 16, 1945. He expected to join the fight.
“They were losing too many (medical) people in the islands, so they put me in the hospital corps,” Tracas said in a May interview during a Memorial Day recognition event by the Solano County Board of Supervisors.
Tracas noted that his brothers were in constant danger so he was profoundly aware of the risks of war, and because of his work at the hospital, was all too familiar with the losses.
“Memorial Day: That’s the day we give thanks to the people who served our country and should be remembered,” Tracas said.
DAILY REPUBLIC FILE (2017)
COURTESY PHOTO
Sam Tracas visits the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery in Dixon, where his wife is buried. COURTESY PHOTO
Service, or WAVES. She died in 2020.
Factory & MuseumTours
Solano home to resting places of Medal of Honor recipients
DAILY REPUBLIC STAFF DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
One Fairfield man earned the Medal of Honor nursing his crippled B-17 bomber home; a Solano County district attorney earned it for continuing to carry his regiment’s colors despite the grievous wound he suffered at the Battle of the Wilderness; and a Benicia soldier earned it standing alongside Buffalo Bill Cody during an attack on a Sioux encampment.
Two of the Medal of Honor recipients earned theirs in Solano County. They were Mare Island Navy men who leaped into the water on separate occasions to save drowning shipmates.
Solano County has been home or is the final resting place for six recipients: one Air Force, one Army, one Marine Corps and three Navy. Here are their stories:
Edward S. Michael
Seven crew members of the badly shot up B-17, the Bertie Lee, had already jumped on April 10, 1944, when pilot 1st Lt. Edward Michael found Bombardier 2nd Lt. John Leiber still in the nose, firing on an attacking German FW-190 fighter, which disintegrated when he hit it.
Michael ordered Leiber to jump only to be told “my parachute is no good with a 20-millimeter shell hole in it,” according to the account of the mission printed in the 1958 Army and Many Legion of Valor newsletter.
Michael told Leiber to take his parachute and jump only to have Leiber refuse, saying “if we can’t both jump, we’ll go down together,” Michael remembered him saying in a Daily Republic
his air base group were commended for their magnificent action in defending the barracks against the (Japanese) planes with their machine guns and rifles,” according to a War Department press release.
Michael became an air cadet, was commissioned in 1943 and was sent to England to join the 8th Air Force and command the B-17 Bertie Lee, which was named after his first wife.
The target was the Baltic port of Stettin, now part of Poland.
An hour before they reached their target, a wave of about 150 German fighters plowed through the bomber formation, starting off the aerial battle. Soon the Bertie Lee was getting hammered by 22 mm cannon fire that tore up controls, smashed instruments, wounded Michael and one gunner and knocked the bomber out of formation.
The bomber lost 3,000 feet of elevation before Michael could level it out. He was then told that the bomb bay and the 100pound incendiary bombs it held were in flames.
Michael tried the bomb release and emergency bomb release, but they failed to work. That prompted Michael to order the crew to bail out. Seven of them did so. The wounded gunner was the last to leave.
That was when he was presented with Leiber’s dilemma.
top height after ground flak found the aircraft, peppering it and knocking out the elevators.
The Bertie Lee made its way across northern Europe, scaring farmers and barely missing trees on one occasion. Along the way, they flew over a truck of German infantry, who opened fire on the plane, punching more holes in it.
The last German opposition came after the bomber managed to elude coastal flak and was over the North Sea. A German fighter further shot up the dodging bomber and only left after it had expended its ammunition, Michael figured.
Crossing the coast, Michael managed to find the Royal Air Force field at Grimsby. He took the bomber around the field several times, pulling off the approach each time because he had to get it just right due to all the battle damage and the open bomb bay doors.
Finally, he brought the Bertie Lee in, skidding along on the tips of the bomb bay doors before the plane settled onto the turf in what Royal Air Force watchers later described as the most perfect crash landing they had ever seen.
Only after the B-17 came to a rest and Michael and the other two men staggered out did he faint from the loss of blood.
interview. He died in Fairfield in the mid-1990s.
Along with co-pilot 2nd Lt. Franklin Westberg, who had refused to leave the bomber before Michael, the three realized if they all wanted to survive, they would have to jettison the burning incendiary bombs jammed in the bomb bay and get the crippled B-17 back to England.
It was an aerial battle against the odds that would see Michael awarded the Medal of Honor, an award that he strongly felt Leiber and Westberg also richly deserved.
Michael, an Illinois native, joined the Army in 1940 and was serving at Wheeler Field when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
“He and other members of
Michael told Leiber if they were going to stay on the Bertie Lee, Leiber would have to kick the bombs out the bomb bay, which the slightly built man managed to do, balancing on the narrow catwalk between the bombs. However, the bomb bay did not close.
With most of its instruments knocked out, Michael and Westberg had to guess which direction England was, then dipped to tree-
When asked about the rest of the aircrew, from his stretcher, Michael remembered answering, “They’re gone. I ordered them to bail out. I never thought we would live to get back here. Oh God, what am I going to tell their families.”
It was not until the day before he was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1954 that he learned that the last crew member, whose fate was in doubt, survived captivity, like the other six.
See Medal, Page 14
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Edward S. Michael was a Medal of Honor recipient.
Medal
From Page 13
Michael settled in Fairfield after he retired in 1971 as a lieutenant colonel. Neighbors informally named the cul-de-sac after him, putting a small street sign above the official Fairfield one. He died in 1994 and is buried in Utah.
Abraham J. Buckles
One of Solano County’s early district attorneys was also a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient who served with the famous Iron Brigade throughout much of the war.
Born in Muncie, Indiana, Abraham J. Buckles was only 15 when he joined the 19th Indiana Volunteers, which became part of the Iron Brigade in 1861, after the war started.
This iron-willed Indiana man did not let any wounds or capture stop him from serving.
tal colors until again wounded,” the citation read.
Buckles talked about what happened in a Solano Republican article. He said that as his regiment marched toward the Confederates in The Wilderness, Buckles stripped his shirt off long enough to remove some of the bone fragments that still irritated him from his injury in Gettysburg and then unfurled the flag.
When his regiment was pressed by the Confederates, “the only possible safety lay in a charge,” Buckles said in the article. “Waving the flag above my head, I called on the boys to follow.”
Buckles was soon wounded and another soldier, John Divelbus, picked up the flag “and was almost immediately killed.”
Buckles got wounded in the thigh and captured at the Second Battle of Bull Run, escaping not long after. He was wounded in the right shoulder at Gettysburg after rescuing the regiment’s colors, and could not carry a knapsack after that.
On returning to the regiment, he was made color bearer and was carrying the flag when he was grievously wounded in the body at The Wilderness. The Army surgeon was so certain Buckles was dying, the young man was reported as “killed in the Wilderness.”
It was for this action that he was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1893.
“Though suffering from an open wound, carried the regimen-
After making a surprising recovery, Buckles returned to his regiment, which had been combined with the 20th Indiana due to losses, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He was wounded in the knee at the Battle of Hatcher’s Run on March 25, 1865, which resulted in the amputation of his right leg. Only then was he discharged from service, 15 days before Lee surrendered at Appomattox, all before Buckles turned 20.
After the war, he became a teacher, was admitted to the Indiana Bar in 1875 and moved to Dixon. He was elected Solano County district attorney in 1879 and kept that position until 1884 when he was named Superior Court judge for Solano County. After a stint as judge in the state Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, he returned to Solano County Superior Court where he served until he died Jan. 9, 1915
Alexander Parker
Alexander Parker, a Scottish immigrant,
joined the Navy and served for 47 years from the American Civil War to the Spanish-American War, dying on Oct. 2, 1900, at age 68, four months after he retired.
While serving as a boatswain’s mate on the USS Portsmouth at Mare Island Naval Shipyard on July 25, 1876, he attempted to save a fellow sailor from drowning. He was awarded the Medal of Honor two weeks later.
He is buried in the Mare Island Cemetery.
Henry Thompson
Two years after Parker’s action, Seaman Henry Thompson was serving at Mare Island when he rescued another sailor from downing on June 27, 1878, and was awarded the Medal of Honor.
James Cooney
James Cooney, an Irish immigrant, joined the Marine Corps in August 1889 and was part of the Marine contingent sent to China during the Boxer Rebellion, joining an allied army that was going to push its way through the Boxers to relieve the besieged foreign lega-
tion in Peking.
Cooney and four other Marines fought off an attack by Boxers and Imperial Chinese troops near Tienstin, China, until they were reinforced by an Army unit.
“In the presence of the enemy during the battle near Tienstin, China, on July 13, 1900, Cooney distinguished himself by meritorious conduct,” his citation read.
Cooney died while stationed at Mare Island on March 14, 1900, and is buried in the Mare Island Cemetery.
William Halford
English immigrant
William Halford was serving as a coxswain aboard the sidewheel steamer USS Saginaw in 1870 when it was ordered to Midway Island to survey and deepen the entrance to Midway’s lagoon.
The Saginaw was on its way back when it detoured to Kure Atoll to see if anyone was shipwrecked, only to get ship wrecked itself offshore, hitting a reef and sinking.
men managed to reach Kanai, got caught in the breakers and capsized. Only Halford managed to struggle ashore alive, and with a crushed knee. He made his way to Honolulu to report the Saginaw’s fate. King Kamehameha V sent a ship to collect the crew.
Halford not only was awarded the Medal of Honor, but also was promoted to gunner. He stayed in the Navy until 1903, retiring after 34 years of service. The need for experienced officers got him put back on active duty for World War I. He died Feb. 7, 1919, and is buried in the Mare Island Cemetery. The destroyer USS Halford
Halford was one of five men sent out in a small boat to reach the Hawaiian Islands far to the southwest. A month later, the five
COURTESY PHOTO
Former Solano County Superior Court Judge Abraham Buckles was a Medal of Honor recipient.
NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND PHOTOGRAPH
The Saginaw (side-wheel steamer), 1860-70. Built at the Mare Island Navy Yard in 1859.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES CATALOG
Alexander Parker attempted to save a fellow sailor from drowning while serving on the USS Portsmouth at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in 1876.
Brames
From Page 5
on the vessel until January 1956 –more than two years before the historical voyage in which the Nautilus navigated below the ice and under the geographic North Pole.
It submerged in the Barrow Sea Valley on Aug. 1, 1958, reached the North Pole on Aug. 3, and surfaced northeast of Greenland on Aug. 5 – a 96-hour, 1,590-nauticalmile voyage under ice.”
Brames said his time on the Nautilus was mostly one of showing the boat off at various ports of call, and hosting distinguished visitors, mostly top Navy brass, members of Congress and local dignitaries.
The idea was to prove nuclear power could work, and to promote the development of a nuclear-powered Navy. The radio room was just a couple feet from the reactor.
He quipped that the Nautilus was half built by the Electric Boat Company and half-built by Hilton Hotels, the latter being a reference to the luxury of the vessel compared to other submarines.
“As far as a true submarine, the Nautilus came in second,” Brames said of his experiences in the service. “As far as comfort, the Nautilus was first.”
He said the distinction comes because the Nautilus, while he was aboard, never went on a the USS Segundo.
thought he was headed to Argentina, about which he was quite excited, but had misread the assignment board.
Instead, he was issued arctic gear and was flown into Argentia, Newfoundland.
“When the plane landed, I looked outside and the snow was blowing sideways ... It was one of the most miserable places on the face of the earth,” he said.
To get away from the environment, he volunteered for the submarine service.
“So instead of going to hell and back, I went to San Diego,” said Brames, who would be trained as a radioman and assigned to the Catfish.
His time on the Catfish included a smattering of skir-
headed back to San Francisco, and while sailing in under the Golden Gate Bridge, he saw a beautiful redhead staring down at the sub as it passed.
Sometime later he was invited to watch the heavyweight championship bout between undefeated challenger Rocky Marciano and champion Jersey Joe Walcott, Sept. 23, 1952, at a nearby Mill Valley home.
When he arrived, he was pleasantly surprised to see the same woman who had been standing on the bridge. They would marry.
It was not long after that he would be selected for assignment with new construction, which put him on the path to the Nautilus.
And in 1958, back at San Diego, the focus of his life changed
A lot of of men were leaving the service and taking advantage of the GI Bill to get an education. Brames earned his associate’s, -
“The military began to
It was losing a lot of its people, so it decided to start a program by which active duty military personnel could get their degrees while still in the military.
“That’s when I went to work for Southern Illinois University,” said Brames, who helped develop that program, taught at 15 bases, and headed the effort at Travis Air Force Base.
“That required a lot of travel on my part, but that was when travel was a lot easier. There were not as many people traveling and the airports weren’t as busy,” he said.
He also was able to take advantage of a new airline benefit, what would become frequent flyer points, and was able to use that to bring his wife along with him.
“We went to every state, but Alaska,” Brames said.
COURTESY PHOTO
The USS Nautilus prepares to go underwater outside Groton, Conn.
COURTESY PHOTO
A photograph of Tom Brames, seated, second from left, when he served on the USS Nautilus with the Navy.
AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC PHOTOS
Al Murphy’s insignias and metals adorn his wall at his home
Brigandi
From Page 1
for the sea trials, with a few leaks, so we had to bring it back in and get those fixed,” he said.
As it turned out, a trash disposal unit had been put in backward, which caused the leaks.
“That’s when you find out there is nowhere to go when you are on a sub and are taking on water.”
Beyond that, as a radioman, he was ordered to stay on board.
Brigandi grew up in Philadelphia. His father worked at the shipyards, including during World War II. And while his father talked about those experiences a little bit, it was the movies that
Murphy
From Page 7
particularly when planes would come in loaded up with wounded soldiers and locals after a village had been bombed.
His next assignment was in Germany, one of Murphy’s favorite stops. He also enjoyed his time in Luxembourg.
But Murphy said there is always good and bad wherever he was stationed. In fact, he did not think all that much of Travis when he first arrived there, but over the years he has come to love it.
“I started to come to Travis back in the ’50s,” said Murphy, who was not particularly fond of the weather, and especially the wind.
Travis became his home base in 1976. He retired as a chief master sergeant in 1979.
Of all his travels, two places stand out.
One was the former Shemya Air Force Base on the Alaskan Aleutian Island of Shemya. The base is now called Eareckson Air Station.
“We really felt like we were doing something very important for the world. We were getting information on Russian missiles: special planes, special people,
really captured his attention.
“I always wanted to be in the Navy,” Brigandi said about his decision to enlist. He was not particularly concerned about Vietnam, but “the Navy was better than the Army.”
As for his assignment as a radioman, Brigandi said, “I kind of fell into things.”
“In high school, I had a business class and you had to learn how to type, and at boot camp, they had all that information about the skills you have,” he said.
Double that with the Navy’s need for men in the sub service, and Brigandi’s destiny was written, as it were, in Morse code.
One of his earliest memories of sub school was being put in a tank, submerged 100 feet, then shot back up to the surface.
“You have to keep saying, ‘ho, ho, ho,’” Brigandi recalls about the experience. The chant is used to to keep from having their lungs collapse during escape training.
Brigandi said his boat was part of the Atlantic Fleet, but because of the times, every sub patrol was a war patrol.
The two most memorable patrols put his submarine in the vicinity of two “international incidents.” The first was the capture of the USS Pueblo, a cargo ship converted to a spy ship.
It was attacked by North Korean forces on Jan. 23, 1968, and captured. One crew member was killed; 82 others imprisoned. They were repatriated on Dec. 23, 1968.
The second involved the sinking of the USS Scorpion
doing special things,” he said.
The other locale was Washington, D.C. Not only did he enjoy flying in and out of the city, it is also where he met his wife, Mary, in 1957.
She was working civil service for the Department of Defense, and was privy to information that she even kept from her husband.
The couple have three children, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
It was during those early years of marriage that Murphy also was assigned to the Sacred Cow – from sometime in 1959 to Oct. 17, 1961, the final flight.
“We flew 9 miles, from Bolling
submarine on May 22, 1968, southwest of the Azores. According to two eyewitnesses, the sub was sunk by the Russians. The incident was studied extensively over the coming decades, with some analyses ruling out explosions. The official cause is an unspecified mechanical malfunction that pushed the sub to crush depths.
Brigandi left the Navy in 1970 and went to work for a music company.
The job gave him opportunities to see a lot of top-level performers backstage, including Lionel Richie, Genesis and Bruce Springsteen.
“And they asked if there was anyone who wanted to go out West,” said Brigandi, who answered yes, and that landed
An award recognizing Al Murphy’s service with the 349th Military Airlift Wing hangs on his wall at his home in Vacaville.
to Andrews for the museum,” said Murphy, explaining that the plane was supposed to be taken to the Smithsonian.
Instead, it was torn apart and trucked to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio.
“I saw it again in Ohio, and they had reconstructed it back to when Roosevelt flew in it. They even put the same tail number on it,” Murphy said.
That number was 42-107451.
“I never did get to fly with a president,” Murphy said, “but a lot of congressmen and generals.”
him in Vallejo in 1990.
Then one day he is eating lunch at the Sardine Can, peeked out the window, and his Navy past came into view.
“I looked out, and low and behold, there was a submarine,” Brigandi said.
He would start his own landscaping business in 1993, which he operated for 32 years.
Brigandi got involved with the Red Cross, the Vallejo Symphony, the Lions Club and the Red Men Samoset Tribe No. 22, a community service group. He even ran for mayor in 1994.
When his thoughts turn to his days in the Navy, Brigandi does admit to one regret.
“I would have liked to have stayed in,” he said, but added the times did not allow that.
in Vacaville.
Satterfield
From Page 4
And he spent time at Da Nang, the “rocket city,” when the night skies lit up with the glow of enemy missiles being rained down on the base.
Satterfield remembers a lot, but much of it he cannot talk about, at all.
“I had such a high clearance that when I got out, I was told I couldn’t publish a book or say anything about what we did for the rest of my life,” he said.
He knows that some of that work continues today, but with far more advanced technology.
Going to Vietnam instead of Hawaii wasn’t the first time in his nearly 27 years in the service that the interests of the U.S. Air Force would be contrary to his own.
In fact, that is how his
service life began.
A graduate of the MAD High School, a campus fed by students from the Southern California communities of Monrovia, Arcadia and Duarte, Satterfield had already served twoplus years in the California Army National Guard, leaving as a sergeant.
“And then I said, ‘I wanted to see the world instead of just California,’” Satterfield said. “So I joined the Air Force.”
That was June 25, 1958.
The service would take him to nine countries and across the United States. He retired as a chief master sergeant on Feb. 1, 1985.
“When I first got into the Air Force, much to my dislike, they made me a cop. I didn’t want to be a cop, I wanted to be a navigator,”
Satterfield said. “But they said the needs of the Air Force came first.”
Satterfield would bounce around a number of bases in the security forces. That changed in September 1966 when he attended the Photo Interpretation IR and SLR course at the Armed
said his pro-military attitude never really changed. He became frustrated with the government restrictions placed on the American forces, but his support for the men and women fighting the war never waivered.
Satterfield did not like the
And then I said, ‘I wanted to see the world instead of just California,’ so I joined the Air Force.
MIKE SATTERFIELD
Forces Air Intelligence Training Center at Lowry.
He knew there was the possibility he would be sent to Vietnam, but that was OK with him.
“I wanted to go,” Satterfield said.
Over his time in the war, he
welcome he received when he came home, but that, too, was something he learned he should expect.
He often sees what he views as a lack of discipline, too.
Satterfield was born into a military family. His father was career Navy and a World War II veteran. It is ironic that the San Antonio-born Satterfield would have to return to Lackland Air Force Base before he met cousins and other family members. He and his third wife, Dina, have no children of their own, but between their marriages, have six. They came to Solano, first to Suisun City and then Fairfield, because her family lived in Hayward and there were new homes in Solano.
Her youngest son served seven years in the Army as an Arabic linguist.
“I would do it again if it was like the old days,” said Satterfield, who does not always like what he sees when he is at Travis Air Force Base. “I see what goes on at the base, and I don’t think (the airman) respect their officers.”
